Although the Colorado men’s basketball team has lost six of seven games since making headlines with a Jan. 12 victory over ranked Baylor, the morale and focus of the Buffaloes players remains good, CU assistant coach State McClain said Monday on the Big 12 coaches teleconference.
“I’ve been around teams where you lose a game and you’re not sure (how players will react),” McClain said. “This group of guys, they really care. They hurt. They want to do better. I like their attitude. They’re leaving it all out there.”
McClain, head coach for nine seasons at Wyoming (1998-2007), subbed on the teleconference for CU coach Jeff Bzdelik, who is in Chicago to attend the funeral of his mother.
A disappointing 84-66 home loss to Missouri on Saturday left Colorado (11-12, 2-7 Big 12) with an overall losing record for the first time this season. McClain said the message to the team after that game was that here is a lot of basketball left to be played.
“I like what (our players) are talking about and how they’re reacting after games, and how they come back to practice,” McClain said. “We just have to keep that focus.”
Colorado has a mid-week bye before playing Saturday at Kansas State. The Wildcats figure to rise in the national rankings when the new polls are released later on Monday.
The trip to Manhattan, Kan., continues an especially difficult stretch for the Buffs that began with last week’s games against Kansas and Missouri. Upcoming are dates with Oklahoma (Feb. 17 in Boulder), Kansas (Feb. 20 in Lawrence) and Missouri (Feb. 24 at Columbia).
The mid-week bye came at a good time, McClain said.
“It will give a little time for guys to catch their breath,” McClain said. “We just want to get better every day. We don’t have to prepare for a game for a couple of days, so we can get back and focus on things that we’ve got to do better.
“It’s a time for guys to catch their breath and realize that there’s a lot of basketball left and we can do some things. But we have to do them (first) in practice.”
That’s Alec
McClain said the CU coaching staff was not surprised that Buffs 6-foot-6 freshman guard Alec Burks showed no rust on Saturday.
Burks had only played less than three minutes in 10 days when he suited up against Missouri, having sprained his left knee early against Iowa State and then being held out of the overtime loss to Kansas. Wearing a light wrap on the knee, he scored a career-best 27 points against Missouri, his home-state school. Burks is a native of Kansas City, Mo.
“Alec had been really good in practice when he did practice,” McClain said. “So it didn’t surprise me that he came right back out and was able to get going again.
“Good players can take a couple of days off and it doesn’t seem to affect them.”
McClain said Burks” lack of conditioning the previous 10 days “did hit him a couple of times” against Missouri. The coaches decided to leave Burks on the court for 32 minutes of playing time on Saturday “so he could play through it,” McClain said following the game.
Tom Kensler: 303-954-1280 or tkensler@denverpost.com
